Change the Future

There is a race war happening on social media. The strange thing about it is that the virtual soldiers on this electronic battlefield are all white. It is not a war between races. It’s a thread war of words between white people who are offended by racist ideology and symbolism, and white people who are offended that other white people are offended by the symbols and ideals that they see as history, heritage, and tradition. It is surprising to me that in 2018 that there is not agreement on what is racist and what is not. It is shocking to me that there are many white people who still believe in the “lost cause” theory regarding the civil war. It is unfathomable to me that there are still people who can say “the war of northern aggression” with a straight face.

I read the comments again and again. Lots of white people want us to stop talking about racism. They think that if we pretend it never existed, then it will cease to exist. A true existstential dilemma. I understand though. It is painful to admit to our racist past. It is even more painful to acknowledge that racism persists. It is uncomfortable to recognize our own prejudices that make us complicit in the perpetuation of institutional racism. No white person feels privileged, so how can they embrace the idea of white privilege? And unless someone is a Klan member or a Nazi, most white people do not consider themselves racist. Most of us can somewhat relate to Donald Trump’s insistence that he is the least racist person he knows. We all sort of feel that way about ourselves.

If we really want to move past racism in this country, then we must acknowledge our racist past. The past in which our forefathers could boldly claim that all are created equal, but uphold the legality and morality of slavery. The past in which our ancestors terrorized black people across the south with the spectacle of public lynching. The past that codified the second-class status of citizens of color. The past that denied people of color the right to fully participate economically in our society. The past in which the maids of our grandparents had to use a toilet in the basement rather than the facilities that the white people used. The past in which our own families would raise objections to interracial dating or marriage. It was not long ago when some schools still banned black girls and boys from dancing with their white peers. Recent enough that Natalie Merchant wrote a song about it.

We can never change the past, so we must accept it and acknowledge it. We must face the pain and discomfort we feel so that we can acknowledge that our pain and discomfort is nothing compared to the pain, discomfort, and damage that our white way of life has inflicted on non-white people.

We cannot change the fact that the father of our country chewed his food with the teeth of his slaves. Let that thought sink in.

But not being able to change the past does not mean that we cannot change the future. But if we cling to phony symbols of our glorious white past, we cannot even begin to do the hard work of binding up and healing the wounds that still lay open across this country.

Life is Not all Sunsets and Sand

Like most people I know, we go on a family vacation every summer.  Usually we visit a coastal area. Mostly we have spent our vacations on the east coast somewhere between Nags Head, NC and Daytona Beach, FL. However, my oldest brother and his family had been going to Siesta Key on the gulf coast of Florida during spring break for years. Several years ago, we took the kids to Disney during spring break and drove the couple of hours to see my brother and family at Siesta Key.  We fell in love with the white sand that stayed cool to the touch. We were amazed at the clear blue water. We liked the calmness of the Gulf.

So, we began making the trek to Siesta Key every other year or so for our vacation. We had never been morning people, so we never really witnessed the sunrise over the Atlantic.  But, I will never forget the first evening we watched the sun descend into the Gulf as we watched it set and disappear. For me it was a spiritual phenomenon that filled me with awe and wonder.  I saw it as a demonstration of the power of G-d and the beauty of his creation.  Tonight, we will be witnesses once again to this magic. This week we will experience our last family vacation before our oldest daughter leaves for college. I know that we will continue to have family vacations with her, but somehow it seems like they will be different. She will be an adult.  How much will she change in the coming year?

We always look forward to vacation week.  I should note that not all family vacations are rosy and pleasant. But even those not-so-great ones make for fun stories to tell later. Sometimes, much later.  We often reminisce about the “bad house” at Ocean Isle Beach. First, the screen door was like a steel-jaw trap. You know, the kind that ruthless fur traders leave behind to torture and kill animals.   Before the trip was over, we had all been victims of its mean and quick snap on our arm or leg!  Then, we woke very early the first morning to the loudest hammering and sawing that we had ever heard. A new house was going up next door!  I went and asked if this would continue all week. The foreman informed me that it would and that they were following all codes concerning hours of construction.  We went to the drug store to buy a box fan. It took a while to find one in an old dusty box that didn’t have the words “whisper quiet” emblazoned across the label.

On the second day, we heard a knock at the door. A man introduced himself as the owner of our vacation rental. He said that if we would let him put a roof over the deck while we were there, he would give us a $100 cash to go out to dinner. He assured us that he would only be working on it while we were spending time on the beach.  The only problem was that he left stray nails all over the already very splintery deck. We spent quite a bit of time removing foreign objects from our feet. Eventually we realized that the deck was just unusable.  But one thing was great about the house for the first two days. The AC worked great. Until it didn’t. On our return from a hot, hot day at the beach, we immediately noticed that the house was not cool when we walked in. Then Lyric, my youngest, noticed that there was a lot of water dripping from the ceiling. I called the rental company. They said that they would send someone. We waited and waited. Then I called the nail-dropping-owner and complained. He got someone out to fix the AC, but we could not go anywhere until he arrived. We had to let him in.

Now, the AC was working, we had a loud fan to try and drown out the construction noise, we were avoiding the deck, but still occasionally being crunched by the steel-jaw door!  Maybe things were getting better. Predictably, we noticed that the previously vacant house across the street began to come alive. Pick-up trucks with fancy paint jobs and tall wheels were arriving by the dozens. These trucks were filled with muscle-bound young men and skimpy bikini-clad girls. They were unloading cases and cases of beer and a few kegs as well. The party started just about the time we were having dinner. I kept thinking it would eventually settle down. But it was louder than ever at Lyric’s bedtime. She could not sleep. It was just as loud when we all wanted to go to bed. We could not sleep. The box fan was ineffective.

I used to party. I didn’t want to call the cops. But at 2:00am it was still going full force. There were some drunk and loud fights between girlfriends and boyfriends. There was a whole bunch of hooting and hollering. I called the cops. I played Gladys Cravats and watched through the blinds. A single police car arrived. He stopped and began fist bumping and high-fiving the muscle-bound dudes. He pointed at our rental house. I ducked behind the curtain. Then he drove away. The party continued all night.  I had had enough.

I called the management company and voiced all my complaints. I insisted on a refund. They explained that the party house belonged to the Ocean Isle Police Chief. His son was visiting with friends from college. I was fighting authority and it was winning.  The landlord agreed to refund my initial deposit.  So, I had a hundred bucks from the owner and $250 from the rental company. We decided that we could use that money to rent a boat and get away from all the chaos. We could tour the intracoastal waterway and its sandy beaches.  Finally, things would be calm.

For some reason, it was an especially rough day on the waterway. Some family members were feeling seasick. I said, “No problem, we will just beach the boat on this sandy island and take a break.”  I wondered to myself why all the other boaters had anchored off the island rather than beaching their boats on the powdery sand. I grew up on a large lake and we regularly beached boats. I expertly raised the motor, cut the engine and released the anchor for a perfectly smooth landing.  We clambered onto the shore. The nauseated ones took a seat in the sand to try and get the world to right itself again.

Within a span of about five minutes, I noticed a problem.  Waterways have tides and this one was retreating quickly!  The boat was now halfway on land!  I raced to try and push it out into the water. It would not budge. We had rented the boat for two hours.  How long before the tide goes all the way out and then back again to float the boat? I was panicking.  Some other guys, younger and stronger, came to my rescue. They heaved and pushed alongside me and the boat began to inch back into the water. I was pushing as hard as I could when it became buoyant and released itself from the sand. I took one more step and I was chest deep in salt water. My brand-new iPhone was in my pocket. Siri drowned.

We packed up and headed home a day early. This vacation was doomed from the start. 

But I have a good feeling about our trip this year. We drove halfway yesterday and even though it rained most of the way, everyone was in a good mood.  We will finish the second leg of the trip today. Tonight, we will stand on the cool, white sand and watch the sun sink into the sea. All day long today, the sun will make its journey from the day’s birth and then it will dramatically leave us. But we will be secure in the knowledge that it is not gone, it’s just out of our sight.  A nice reminder that our girls will not be gone when they depart from our home. They will just be out of our sight. But we can be secure in the knowledge that we have created a memorable journey that they will always be part of.  They will always return and we will have many new sunrises and sunsets to celebrate.

To President Trump from the Son of a Photojournalist

I have had enough of Donald Trump’s attacks on American journalists.  Labeling members of the press as enemies of the people is simply unacceptable and false. Journalists are heroes. I should know, my father was a photojournalist. Many of our friends are journalists. Many of my relatives are journalists.  For those of us close to people in the business, the President’s claims of fake news regarding well-established legitimate news organizations is head-scratchingly absurd. At first, I thought that this would just pass. I thought that the American people would push back against this crazy talk. I thought that people would not trust the words of a man who states that The National Enquirer has credibility.

Donald Trump disparages real newspapers across this country daily. He treats the reporters with contempt publicly. My father worked his whole life as a news photographer.  Our city had two newspapers with large regional readerships.  The Charlotte Observer was the morning newspaper. The Charlotte News was the afternoon paper. Most people that I knew growing up subscribed to both papers. Here is the important piece that I believe confuses people about journalism these days. Each of these papers had a news department. Both had an editorial department. The Charlotte Observer tended to be editorially liberal. The Charlotte news tended to be editorially conservative. However, both papers ran their newsrooms independent of the editorial department. News coverage is not biased, unless you are the party that the news reflects poorly on.

Here is how I know that the editorial bias of the opinion pages did not influence other departments. My father shot pictures for the bulk of his career for The Charlotte News.  About ten years before his retirement, afternoon newspapers across the country started going out of business. They were losing subscriptions to people who preferred to watch the evening news on television. It was very difficult for a newspaper to scoop a live TV broadcast, so the news that they were putting out seemed a step behind.   As other afternoon papers across the country shut down, so did The Charlotte News. Fortunately, for Dad, the Charlotte Observer was hiring. Without missing a beat, he immediately continued pursuing assignments for what had been, historically, the rival newspaper.  

Here is the truth. Nothing changed in my father’s approach to the job. He followed his assignments just as he had for the formerly “conservative” paper. He “enterprised”, looking for great feature shots, just as he always had.  Many reporters made the switch to The Observer newsroom as well. They did not suddenly start looking for the liberal bent on a story. They covered the news. They investigated and exposed, just as they always had. Journalists show us the truth. These papers won Pulitzers for exposing the fraud being committed by The PTL club, a religious organization that was building a theme park and overselling timeshares in its luxury condo building. They exposed the terrible medical phenomena known as “Black Lung” that was killing coal miners. They covered the organized crime being committed by the local chapters of The Hells Angels and The Outlaws motorcycle gangs. They did these things and exposed themselves to great risk. Truth telling is a dangerous job.

As I think about it now, I can’t remember which paper was responsible for the investigative work on these stories I mentioned above. They were not liberal or conservative stories. They were factual. And facts are important. I’m afraid that our current President does not believe in fact based journalism. My guess is that the facts are not on his side.

Let us all be thankful for the men and women who dedicate their lives to journalism. They are the protectors of our democracy.